Assange’s Arrest Notwithstanding, If this is the Worst WikiLeaks has Against the United States, The World is Saved!24/12/2010

Post Assange’s arrest on December 7, 2010, in UK on suspected rape and molestation charges brought up by two Swedish women, if one were to read released copies of the women’s original police statements, it would be hard to decipher the reasons for which Assange has been arrested – or even charged. The women’s transcripts document not only that both the women consented in full knowledge to having physical relations (on different dates, of course) with Assange, but also that both the women had initially gone together to the police station to simply force Assange (who apparently could not be contacted otherwise by these women) to take a medical test for sexually transmitted diseases – as at least one of them believed that the condom Assange had used during the physical session with her had broken down. And why blame Assange? Apparently, he knew about the alleged breakage during the act and refused to stop despite being told to do so – and this is evidently an offence under Swedish law.

Should that be considered an immediately arrestable crime? Well, the Swedes and Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization) think so. It’s more amusing to imagine that the Interpol, which seems to have fallen over itself in arresting Assange, hasn’t acted in similar haste in other arrest warrant cases, a notable one being of Roman Polanski, who has literally been ignored and is moving scot free in France for years despite having already been convicted in US courts on rape charges involving a 13 year old girl, and despite having had the so-called red alert notices issued against him by Interpol time and again. And the most hilarious part in all this is that Interpol’s international headquarters is right there bang in the middle of France, in Lyon.

The answer to this is that while the French government protects Polanski despite his frivolous behaviour, the UK government sees the Assange arrest as an opportunity to bend its back to satisfy the Americans.

Having said that, the fact is that whatever has been churned up by WikiLeaks till date against the US establishment actually works to the benefit of the Americans and in fact does their image more good than harm. While the world used to imagine a deep, sinister cabal of US diplomats conspiring and conniving to assassinate high-profile leaders, the 2,50,000 US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks thankfully reveal none such matter – and whatever negative has been revealed, was already in the know of the global media.

And what is this ‘worst’ that WikiLeaks has revealed? Here are some nuggets:

Some of the cables revealed American policy on the two Korean nations and in fact even confirmed the US attempts at their reunification in case North Korea collapsed economically and politically. Some other cables document how the US administration tried to bargain with other countries to take the Gitmo detainees – while in one case, US offered Slovenia a meeting with President Obama, in another case, they offered to pay a handful of millions to the island nation of Kiribati if they accepted to take the Gitmo detainees. The cables also reveal that the US administration has continuously tried to remove highly enriched uranium in the Pakistani nuclear reactor with a fear that that may be used to build an illicit nuclear device.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also at one time or the other ordered diplomats to collect information on top foreign diplomats including on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s plan on Iran, apart from information on Sudan (including Darfur), Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran & North Korea. Another supposedly negative finding is the close proximity between Russian PM Vladimir Putin and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. The cables also revealed that the American establishment believes Syria continues supplying dangerous weapons to Hezbollah. Another cable leak on the Chinese hacking effort of Google mentions that in “a global computer hacking effort, China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country.” It further warns that “they (Chinese hackers) have broken into US government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and US businesses since 2002.” One cable additionally documents how King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, along with other leaders of Qatar, Jordan, UAE & other Middle Eastern nations requested US to “cut off the head of the snake” – i.e. to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Now, how bad would you consider all this to be? The answer is, none of this is enough to hassle either diplomatic relations between nations or media perception about the US. In fact, in some of the revelations – for example US attempts to takeover Pakistan’s uranium – the Americans have actually come out with flying colours. Then why is the US so belligerent against WikiLeaks? Well, the suspicion is that the site has worse up its sleeve that it’s holding back as “insurance” for Assange. Well, would you call that blackmailing or a quite simplistic bluff? We say both. And yes, we’re saved!.